what are you doing instead of paying attention to the u.s. election results

my philosophy is it’s best to throw your phone in the fucking ocean today and do absolutely anything else other than “pay attention” bc your attention is not going to change anything that happens and you also won’t know anything for sure until tomorrow. ok

i’m working on a zine!!! i also have band practice today, and after that i think im going to show my best friend i saw the tv glow

Proofreading now, heading out to visit a recuperating friend and play Scrabble soon, bowling when I get back. Will tune in at 9:00 tonight.

right now, doing really boring data entry shit. meh. which is the worst because then I actually seek distraction and....checking polls is a distraction. so...am gonna turn on the tv in the background and watch Hangin with Mr Cooper while I work

im working, cooking, walking a dog mostly

i'm also spending today looking at my cats and thinking about how they don't even know what an election is

I’m finally watching The Cure’s release party show

This is a great time to dip into Autechre live sets

Tonight I have a rehearsal for a show this weekend where I really should have the songs memorized but… I don’t

Poring through a hideously overengineered SQL stored procedure line by line trying to find why everything drops out, but getting distracted and doomscrolling every 10 minutes.

ooooof I’d rather follow the election results

Finishing Infinite Wealth at last, video games a great way to swallow time and stay distracted.

Did some yoga. Might go see a film later.

I intend to play loud music in my empty house all afternoon into the evening, and watch "Love Is Blind Habibi" around dinner time. I will probably be checking my phone once an hour but I'm hoping to avoid the "refresh, refresh, refresh" hole that I sometimes get into around election time

going to watch the fireworks from the top of the multistorey car park with the kids, then edit my 1949 mix for a while, turn off my internet connection and listen to a particularly good audiobook (undecided which so far) while I try to go to sleep at 11 or so.

looking at my recent bloodwork that shows glucose in the prediabetes range and trying to remember if I fasted or not (I think I did not because they didn't tell me to and I snack like a fiend and was up very late prior to the test)

playing the jrpg about an election instead of following the election

Working and listening to my client repeat the same tiny bit of information that she knows about the election over and over again.

From what I've read we should know much faster than 2020.

normal work at the office for the next 5 hours or so. then, i'm forcing myself to a 3 hour workout instead of my shorter one just so i'm not watching news/doomscrolling. get home maybe 8, make dinner and watch a bunch of Taskmaster. i'll probably check my phone periodically during the day but if it becomes increasingly clear Harris is going to decisively win this i'm going to avoid the news.

Editing a work thing. Probably some bookstore browsing in a bit.

I might go to the library and leave my phone behind and just read Marcel Proust tonight.

xp *unless it becomes increasingly clear

This is the day in uk where we celebrate a dude being tortured to death so there will be big crowds just near my place watching a firework display. I’ll be holed up in the pub reading (my book club is tomorrow and I’m only halfway through so need to cram)

i love to get mildly high and go to the movie theater and watch movies all day instead of following the election, but i have work and my kids are off school, so i am doing work and trying to work on a song for my songwriting class and i am hoping to have time to play video games

Obv UK hours here anyway so sad to report I will go about my business this evening: yoga practice, reading this week's book (John Milton) over a Chinese takeaway, and then involuntarily getting up at 4am to look at my phone..xps

I've mentioned this here before but in 2016, our local arthouse movie theatre sponsored a showing of Idiocracy (i know, so fuckin lame and tired even then), bragging that "you'll know who the President is after the movie ends". I still wonder how people reacted when they left the theatre that night and pulled out their phones

i WOULD love...
xpost

my plan was to do a few hours of yardwork but now I'm trying to figure out how to reattach the trunk handle button to a 2015 Fiat Abarth

"Working" at my day job, doing a critical review of a really terrible libertarian fantasy novel (not fantasy in the swords-and-dragons sense, libertarian fantasy in the "and then one day everything was privatized and life was bliss"), writing about the Black Artists Group, and listening to the Autechre NTS Sessions box loud on headphones.

Blogging, reading, and at 5 p.m. meeting a couple mates at a bar. I hope to get a little out of my head but not too much because I teach tomorrow and have an early flight on Thursday.

Thanks to Ivy and this thread for prompting me to come up with an election avoidance strategy.

Went to get a new headlight for my car, sent a check to a freelancer, sent another check to the state to amend the articles of incorporation for a new nonprofit I’m starting, now cleaning my bathroom. So no matter what happens, I can see where I’m going, my obligations are paid, I have a new thing to work on, and a clean pot to piss in.

Also yes, enjoying my zenned-out cat sprawled serenely on the couch.

gonna finish a book tonight and draw some dogs

collecting rocks and seashells, foliage walk

op otm
except I'm staying tf away from the internet for quite a while longer than today depending on the outcome

Going to make some rhubarb syrup for the bar, then maybe plow through this stack of New Yorkers. (magazines, not people)

rn listening to 30 different versions of Pity the Child

oh, also,,,, needless to say i am smoking mad weed

wise. I'm about to head to a union meeting. I will try to do something non-political later though

rn listening to 30 different versions of Pity the Child

Will probably be at home later painting up minis for Malifaux and some Old West terrain

I stopped listening to Pity the Child because I made a severe data entry fuckup due to not paying attention lol....

Hangin with Mr Cooper time

I'm listening to Wayne Shorter's Native Dancer

Watching ONLY MURDERS (2024) until hockey comes on. Earlier, went to physical therapy, came home and made mulligatawny and a loaf of choc chip banana bread. Laundry is working as well on a rare Tues off from work

probly just the same thing i've been doing for the past two weeks, endlessly listening to peter green songs. oh this friday i'm watching the orb and ozric tentacles live, so that's another distraction.

At the National Gallery of Art in DC

oooh, I would go spend 30 minutes looking at Zim-Zum (again) if I was there

Took my client shopping, got a text from my landlord about paying the rent, dropped my client off at her house, went to the motel that my landlord owns to pay the rent but they were gone, stopped and filled the van's tank and bought booze to drink tonight and tomorrow night, picked up my husband to take him to his cardiologist appointment, and now we're there waiting for him to come by and talk to us about his EKG results.

finishing season 4 slow horses

Boring programmatic stuff for my network of food pantries, coming off a big event yest that I planned, scripted, and presented. Which definitely kept my mind off election stuff yesterday.

Tonight I'm going to a community center that's hosting hang-outs and food. It's a good time to be with some people.

Watching ONLY MURDERS (2024) until hockey comes on. Earlier, went to physical therapy, came home and made mulligatawny and a loaf of choc chip banana bread. Laundry is working as well on a rare Tues off from work

Last night I watched the terrible Netflix time travel slasher 00s nostalgia flick "Timecut" which admittedly brought cheesy lolz and kept me from thinking about the election for 90 minutes. I will be a happy camper if I can find something equally mindless to do tonight.

Oh that reminds me! my gf hasn't seen We Summon the Darkness and I think she would like it

I mentioned bowling earlier. Normally the election would be on at the bowling alley, but, my country being what is, the Leafs game will be on instead--Joni Mitchell understands. (Will ask if they can spare a monitor.)

I'm in call tonight at work

i was on call for the uk election and stayed up all night for it (nothing happened). but given the time difference the polls won't close until close to the time i normally wake up so... so I'll be asleep.

(probably jinxed it now)

Contemplating making a martini versus taking a nap.

yoga, grocery store, dinner, talk to my partner about life

you guys must be so fucking exhausted, I wonder if November 6th even exists for half of you

laundry

analysis of electricity costs since i switched to new tariff in sept

procrastinating writing/soon writing

you guys must be so fucking exhausted, I wonder if November 6th even exists for half of you

― assert (matttkkkk),

It's a vacation weekend! Traveling that morning.

Wandering around Tokyo

Playing Doom and listening to avant-prog, as usual

Kinda wish I was offline camping right now. Alas.

Finally cracking into a work project I’ve been putting off. Playing night tennis later. Not watching TV. But checking the ILX politics thread for laughs and good news.

-Packing for a move at a ridiculously leisurely pace, compounded by indecision about how to best fill boxes
-buying groceries & food prep
-listening to Timothy Morton talking about Being Ecological on the London Review Bookshop podcast
-...and to Rupa, Ornette Coleman, Modern Jazz Quintet, Stan Getz, Sade
-deleting emails, especially political ones

fill the boxes from the bottom up

listening to The Gentle Side Of John Coltrane

chilling

playing Oxygen Not Included

in about half an hour my wife and I will go out to the local pub to have a pint and play a game tbd, probably Codenames or Quirkle

then we're gonna eat leftovers and I'm gonna play D&D (hi ian)

Reading a super long Lester Bangs profile of Brian Eno
Checking out new Autechre live stuff
Working a bit

Playing Factorio, raiding with my Warcraft guild at 9, also listening to the new Autechre stuff

Factorio + new Autechre sounds perfect

my philosophy is it’s best to throw your phone in the fucking ocean today and do absolutely anything else other than “pay attention” bc your attention is not going to change anything that happens and you also won’t know anything for sure until tomorrow. ok

I completely agree, can you also convince my partner and this other couple we're supposed to watch the election results with.

Seriously don't have the courage to open up the US Politics thread, much less Twitter or whatever, but I'm encouraged by the fact that the Trump's gonna win containment thread isn't up top.

spent all day driving back from seeing the Chameleons in Kansas City, now eating dinner and looking at this thread, then gotta go get cat food and pick up my husband from orchestra rehearsal, then maybe talk to my mom and watch an episode of something. somewhat compelled to watch an election that's not this one, I do have Tanner '88 from the library.

Cranking The Stooges and cooking an overly complicated dinner that will keep me too busy to check the TV for a couple hours

Waiting in line for tacos at our favorite local spot r/n. Hoping to keep to my plan of putting on a movie to skip ahead through the hours. But my partner wants to stay abreast of the coverage, and I worry that the coverage I've already seen has kind of got its hooks into me and I won't be able to resist checking for returns. I just refuse to watch people gesture in front of graphics and pontificate about the significance of counties that have 12% of the vote in, versus other counties with 18% of the vote in but where we're expecting a lot of votes to arrive any minute now, etc. etc.

listening to music with our dogs in our laps, sipping some wine and trying to enjoy our true first taste of fall weather with out back doors open

I just spent an hour going through unperson's most recent BA email newsletter and adding Nigerian funk and J-Jazz to my Tidal album and playlist queues.

Finishing out the build of a portable raspberry pi5-based network scanner and watching Guitar Wolf's Wild Zero for the nth-time. Indonesian fried chicken and a couple cans of Order Of Combat IPA from Bottle Logic Brewing in Anaheim.

...are waiting - I'll get to them shortly

i had the t.v. on with the sound down and i did a pretty good job for awhile of ignoring the screen and played old rockabilly 45s. it definitely helped my mood. i danced around to a rock & roll beat.

Long walk with the dogs and then read 150 pgs of a super queer YA novel.

Watching the last episodes of American Horror Story Asylum (awful) and Kevin Can Fuck Himself (pretty good).

Below Deck Sailing Yacht

I tried watching an episode of that show Tracker and man, that was the dumbest shit ever. It felt weirdly meta, because it was exactly the kind of crap the lead actor's character on This Is Us would have starred in.

There are so many treasures on Tubi